The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-01-26
MEXICAN METHODS.
ANCIENT AGRICULTURE AS PRAC-
TlCED IN OUR SISTER REPUBLIC.

-t.t HBAl-ElhSSL oOlA HI LhS DSPuDAAC-
Lyric lltursl Implements Ancient
aIetbods-The Water Question.
Much has been said about Mexican
hacieudas, but probably few people re-
alize the vast extent and unlimited posi-
bilities Of some of. them. In this wonder
full country there are estates into each of
which many an Old World principality
might be crowded, and which a king
Nigh De proud to own as his domain. An
example of this is the famous soladO
hacienda, which covers more than 500
square miles. 1t lies partly in the states
Of CUah uila, NuevO Leon, ZacatecaS and
San luis Potosi, on the great highway TO
the capital and the line of the New Next
can Central railway, having an average
elevation of over 1000 feet. Chains Of
noun aims traverse it-how rich in min
eral wealth nobody knows; while flourish
iug farms, mining settlements, manufac-
turing centres, and even incorporated vii
AGES IRE found within its limits. Just
-Liuk # it! Over 500, 900 acres of this
fruitful soil, which bears everything
grown in both temperate and tropic
zones producing, at least, two crops OF
corn a year, and perpetual and almost
spontaneous crop of many other things
is n neat little property, "by no means to
be disp ged," as the immortal Sairy would
say.
THE REAL PRODCCTIN ENESs.
As to the real productiveness of this soil,
~ Is q ficult to get information in reliable
=eur-- INQUIRE of a Mexican how much
ufs le-. / or orchard yields, and the inyari-
able 81 swer-accomp panied by al inimita
lie strug of the shoulders-is "Quien
abeE (Who knowsJ or "Asi Dios
ilrer.l CAS- God willst L have ascer-
jne5 that with Mexican cultivation
Icl means merely tickling the surface
tine soil and turning on water now and
rom thirty to forty-five bushels of
the acre is considered satisfact-
urn. The few who have tried i'm
a. methods of cultivation affirm that
-.l-'- five bushels of corn twice a year,
- s-le, may easily be produced. planting
{ crop in February and the second
. or August. In this country the
s-.l' ard price of corn is cents per
..uId
Probably the finest soil in the republic IS
foU Il on those fertile plains lying be-
tween Leonand San Juan del Rio, where
one fanega (abOut three buShels) of seed
w ] Yield, on moderate average, not less
than j0'fanegas of corn. In veral Of the
Mexican substantially Guerrero Jalisco,
C8jaca and TObascO-three crops of corn
arc regularly produced in a single year,
called respectively reiego, temporal and
toralmile. Wheat grows to good advan-
tGge in all but five of the Mexican states,
and tEo crops in twelve months is the
rule
Within the last five years many plOws and
other agricultural implements have been
brought to Mexico; but upon the vast ma
jOrity Of farms nothing to this day has
ever been employed for turning up the soil
but great fOrked sticks, or clumsy, three
Coruered wooden concerns-precisely like
those used in Egypt 1000 years ago, if
pictures of the latter are correct. The
process of threshing, also, is almost uni
yersaiL v conducted in the primitive fash
ioS OF King David's day, or by the still
more simple method of throwing the grain
into IN enclosure and driving Il flock of
sheep TO and fro upon it.
THE WATER QUESTION
THAT perpleXing water question-which,
I'm Utah, for example, the MOrmOns have
regulated to the nicely of clOckwOrk-is
here among the mysteries that mo fellow
can find out" If you ask farmer about his
irrigaGing privileges, he will tell you that
LU has nine days water" thirteen days
water" or twenty days water" as the
case may be-meaning that he has right
TO turn water on his land once III every
nine, thirteen or twenty days-a privilege
which you may be sure has cost him a
good round sum. In thickly populated
sections the greatest difficulty now seems
to be that all the available water has al
ready been transferred from the rivers to
the irrigating bitches.
IT. IS but reasonable logic to conclude
that if Mexican land is valuable only
when irrigated, and if most of the avail
able water is now in use in the al
ready cultivated area, the country must
look to some improved method for
iesseuing its enormous stretches of waste
lands and barren deserts; and, as the ma
-iyes nave not advanced agriculturally
single step in the course of three centur-
les it clearly rests with their more enter
Drisiug cousins, the Yankees, to come
down here and devise the methods. II
has been proved again and again, that all
these desert sands and arid reaches of Gao
lus aud chaparral may be made to "bIos-
som IS the rose by merely turning water
upon them at regular intervals, and GOV
lands are everywhere for sale.
al the rate of from 30 cents to cents for
aB American acre.
Artesian wells have not been tried to
any extent for purposes of irrigation; bat
hat water is everywhere abundant,
hOugh sometimes far below the surface,
Is shown by the numerous very deep wells,
Of purest and ciearest water, which are
-0uul all over MeXicO.-Fannie b. Ward
IN Boston Transcript.
4 Famous Tree at Vicksbure